Uploaded April 2024 | Updated September 2026, 21 hours ago
In the late 1950s, this stylish transistor radio in a fun, attractive box might very well catch your eye. The question is where? In what kind of store would you have to be.. to see and want this radio?
In a tire store. Really. In a Firestone tire store.
In the heyday of radio in the 20th century, everyone wanted to get into the act. Even auto parts and tire stores offered their own brands of radios. Western Auto had the brand Truetone, Goodyear offered their "Goodyear Wings" brand. B. F. Goodrich sold radios branded Mantola. And over at Firestone, you could get radios branded Firestone or Air Chief.
Now this begins to make sense when you think of automobile radios. Back in the 1930s, when this 1938 Firestone catalog appeared, Firestone was in the fairly new business of equipping cars with radios. The earliest cars, of course, had no radios, but by the 1930s, adding radios to cars was a growing business. By then,most car dealers were offering radios as well--in new cars--as an option, but with the Great Depression going on, not a lot of people bought new cars. And the dealer's price for the radio option could add as much as 25% to the cost of the car! So companies selling tires and auto parts to folks with older cars naturally moved into this new radio business. And following on from that, companies like Firestone found it a natural to offer home radios too, large and small.
Jumping ahead twenty years, this little sweetie appeared on display at your local Firestone store. And while you sat around the waiting room on a Saturday morning, bored to tears as dad was getting a new set of whitewalls installed on the family sedan, the discovery of this little radio on display in the store brightened your day immensely. You weren't likely to be taking it home that day, as you had already seen by dad's red face that the price of the tires had put him in a "batten down the hatches" kind of mood. So, best not to mention it today, but there was your birthday ahead in a few months.
Collectors usually see this radio not with the Air Chief brand, but with the Linmark name on it. It was almost certainly made by the prolific, stylish Crown folks over in Japan. There's a picture in this book of Crown radios that shows a radio package very similar to this Air Chief being given away by Jan Murray on a TV show called "Treasure Hunt."
It's an eight-transistor and has a wire handle that can and does double as a stand. It's an underpainted beauty with that reverse paint technique across the top dial area I like so much. In fact, I like it so much I did an entire video on that technique. If you like that look too, I recommend you check out that video on this channel.
The box here, in which this Air Chief 4C48 was supplied, doubles as a display stand--just the way you first saw it in the Firestone store--propped up there on the counter.. this great-looking little radio in an attractive and velvet-lined gift box. Much much more than you'd expect to see in a tire store.. on a Saturday morning that started out to be no fun at all and was getting better by the minute. But.. not for dad.
In the late 1950s, this stylish transistor radio in a fun, attractive box might very well catch your eye. The question is where? In what kind of store would you have to be.. to see and want this radio?
In a tire store. Really. In a Firestone tire store.
In the heyday of radio in the 20th century, everyone wanted to get into the act. Even auto parts and tire stores offered their own brands of radios. Western Auto had the brand Truetone, Goodyear offered their "Goodyear Wings" brand. B. F. Goodrich sold radios branded Mantola. And over at Firestone, you could get radios branded Firestone or Air Chief.
Now this begins to make sense when you think of automobile radios. Back in the 1930s, when this 1938 Firestone catalog appeared, Firestone was in the fairly new business of equipping cars with radios. The earliest cars, of course, had no radios, but by the 1930s, adding radios to cars was a growing business. By then,most car dealers were offering radios as well--in new cars--as an option, but with the Great Depression going on, not a lot of people bought new cars. And the dealer's price for the radio option could add as much as 25% to the cost of the car! So companies selling tires and auto parts to folks with older cars naturally moved into this new radio business. And following on from that, companies like Firestone found it a natural to offer home radios too, large and small.
Jumping ahead twenty years, this little sweetie appeared on display at your local Firestone store. And while you sat around the waiting room on a Saturday morning, bored to tears as dad was getting a new set of whitewalls installed on the family sedan, the discovery of this little radio on display in the store brightened your day immensely. You weren't likely to be taking it home that day, as you had already seen by dad's red face that the price of the tires had put him in a "batten down the hatches" kind of mood. So, best not to mention it today, but there was your birthday ahead in a few months.
Collectors usually see this radio not with the Air Chief brand, but with the Linmark name on it. It was almost certainly made by the prolific, stylish Crown folks over in Japan. There's a picture in this book of Crown radios that shows a radio package very similar to this Air Chief being given away by Jan Murray on a TV show called "Treasure Hunt."
It's an eight-transistor and has a wire handle that can and does double as a stand. It's an underpainted beauty with that reverse paint technique across the top dial area I like so much. In fact, I like it so much I did an entire video on that technique. If you like that look too, I recommend you check out that video on this channel.
The box here, in which this Air Chief 4C48 was supplied, doubles as a display stand--just the way you first saw it in the Firestone store--propped up there on the counter.. this great-looking little radio in an attractive and velvet-lined gift box. Much much more than you'd expect to see in a tire store.. on a Saturday morning that started out to be no fun at all and was getting better by the minute. But.. not for dad.
